Ernie : I guess I agree with the article. My problem is that there is relatively little there, there. Mostly generalities. No dispute from me about those generalities, but where are there examples of what works ? Charter schools that can be pointed to ? Selected parochial schools ? Private academies, at least in New England / upscale California ? Something to sink one's teeth into, in other words. Also, there are ways to be fairly certain about the future. Mostly this is to think about "structural certainties" --mentioned before but as a refresher. Viz, we know who at least 2/3rds of our Senators will be in 2013 and into 2014. We may not know the prime rate the Fed will require for more than the next month or two, in the present case until the end of the year, or so they say, but we can estimate changes with some degree of assurance even if the further out we go the less certainty. And so forth. Thus there are "boundaries" to the near term future, even some that extend out several or many years, like the plausible rate of new use for alternative energy or, conversely, usage rates for natural gas. Etc. Waaaaay back in 1974 two of my articles appeared in an anthology edited by Toffler called Learning for Tomorrow. I must admit that I have not kept up with the field but at the time there were a good number of experimental futures programs in schools across the country, mostly college level but some in secondary ed and even a couple in grade school. It might be worthwhile to revisit the subject and see what happened, what exists now, and what new programs are in the works. That is, the author of the article seems to assume that none of this exists or ever has existed. So, yes, I like the overall thrust of the article, but there are some limitations to the content. Billy ========================================= 4/9/2012 2:11:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
On education and public policy... E why-system-dynamics.html _http://turnock.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-system-dynamics.html?spref=tw_ (http://turnock.blogspot.com/2012/04/why-system-dynamics.html?spref=tw) ____________________________________ All systems, everywhere have levels and flows. These are the only two concepts needed to understand why systems work the way they do (Forrester, 1996). We were taught in school to accumulate knowledge and skills in order to get a job. We define learning as the accumulation of knowledge. We test every child at every grade level to measure their accumulated knowledge. We teach people how to do things so they have a skill in order to get a job. Public education teaches people what is important to know. Students learn skills so that they know how to do things. Students are tested on what they know and the skills for how to use what they know. System Dynamics (SD) enables us to understand why systems work they way they do. Public education involves a way of thinking, learning and communicating that focuses on the past up to the present. Science, math, reading and writing are all focused on knowledge (what) and skills (how) that have been codified into a curriculum. In public education students learn about the past up to the present. Life is moving fast. We need a way to think, learn and communicate about the future. The current public school system does not meet that need. Sustainability education and environmental literacy are focused on students learning more and more about how to do more things. By conforming to the way the current public education system focuses on what and how, we are asking students to accumulate more and more knowledge about the recent past. We are asking students to accumulate more and more skills about how things were done in the recent past. System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate about the future. (Richmond 2010) With SD, learning is about why systems work they way they do. What is needed to model a system is accumulated just in time to use in a model. The knowledge needed about how the parts of a system are related is accumulated just in time to use them in a model. The understanding needed about why feedback loops in systems tell a story is accumulated just in time to use them in a model. SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they do. Politicians and decision makers need to know why systems work the way they do so that they can craft policies that are successful in the future. Policy makers need informed citizens who know why systems work they way they do. Why do policymakers choose policies that fail? A policy response is rational for decision makers who fail to account for the feedback structure of a system. Only by considering the full feedback structure is the ineffectiveness of a policy revealed. By learning why feedback affects system behavior, small system dynamics models have a crucial role to play in policy making. (Ghaffarzadegan, 2012) Policy makers fall prey to the “Pull my finger” joke. They develop a policy that responds to correlations, trends and events believing that they understand the cause like when the finger pull and the sound are close together in space and time. The irony of public policy making is that, without understanding system feedback, what happened in the past will be made worse by a policy response. Without SD, public education is teaching students to look to the past to make decisions about the future. The public school system is walking backwards into the future. The public school system is the primary obstacle to students using SD. The entrenched paradigms are the foundation for education institutions that teach what and how from K12 through university doctorate programs. Educators and students are evaluated based on what they know and how to use what they know. SD enables us to understand why systems work they way they do. System dynamics is a tool to think, learn and communicate in a new way so that educators engage student’s mental models. When mental models rely on “ Pull my finger” thinking a person is not going to understand feedback. To use SD requires a new way of thinking: Think about levels and flows connected in feedback loops within a closed boundary. To use SD requires a new definition of learning: Learning is improving the quality of our mental models.(Richmond 2010) The current public school system does not attempt to improve the quality of student’s mental models. To use SD requires a new way of communicating: Communicate about why your model works using feedback loops. This is where qualitative tools like causal loop diagrams and behavior-over-time graphs are used and useful. Jay Forrester is the founder of System Dynamics. He has said for many years that with the right guidance “students must create their own models and learn from trial and error.” In this way dynamic modeling is learning by doing. “I believe that immersion in such active learning can change mental models.” (Forrester 2009) Why System Dynamics? System Dynamics enables us to understand why systems work they way they do in order to prepare for the future. Bibliography 1. Forrester, Jay W. “System Dynamics and K-12 Teachers.” Creative Learning Exchange. 30 May 1996. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <_http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4665-5.pdf_ (http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/Roadmaps/RM1/D-4665-5.pdf) >. 2. Ghaffarzadegan, Navid, John Lyneis, and George P. Richardson. “Why and How Small System Dynamics Models Can Help Policymakers: A Review of Two Public Policy Models.” System Dynamics Society. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <_http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2009/proceed/papers/P1388.pdf_ (http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2009/proceed/papers/P1388.pdf) >. 3. Richmond, Barry. “Introduction: The Thinking in Systems Thinking- Eight Critical Skills.” Ed. Joy Richmond. Tracing Connections: Voices of Systems Thinkers. Lebanon, NH: ISEE Systems, 2010. 3-21. Print. 4. Forrester, Jay W. “Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation for the 21st Century.” Creative Learning Exchange. 2009. Web. 11 Feb. 2012. <_http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/whyk12sd/Y_2009-02LearningThroughSD.pdf_ (http://clexchange.org/ftp/documents/whyk12sd/Y_2009-02LearningThroughSD.pdf) >. ____________________________________ (via _Instapaper_ (http://www.instapaper.com/) ) Sent from my iPhone -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
